"Jules Verne - From The Earth To The Moon" - читать интересную книгу автора (Verne Jules)

FROM THE EARTH TO THE MOON




CHAPTER I


THE GUN CLUB


During the War of the Rebellion, a new and influential club was
established in the city of Baltimore in the State of Maryland.
It is well known with what energy the taste for military matters
became developed among that nation of ship-owners, shopkeepers,
and mechanics. Simple tradesmen jumped their counters to become
extemporized captains, colonels, and generals, without having
ever passed the School of Instruction at West Point;
nevertheless; they quickly rivaled their compeers of the old
continent, and, like them, carried off victories by dint of
lavish expenditure in ammunition, money, and men.

But the point in which the Americans singularly distanced the
Europeans was in the science of gunnery. Not, indeed, that
their weapons retained a higher degree of perfection than
theirs, but that they exhibited unheard-of dimensions, and
consequently attained hitherto unheard-of ranges. In point of
grazing, plunging, oblique, or enfilading, or point-blank
firing, the English, French, and Prussians have nothing to
learn; but their cannon, howitzers, and mortars are mere
pocket-pistols compared with the formidable engines of the
American artillery.

This fact need surprise no one. The Yankees, the first
mechanicians in the world, are engineers-- just as the Italians
are musicians and the Germans metaphysicians-- by right of birth.
Nothing is more natural, therefore, than to perceive them
applying their audacious ingenuity to the science of gunnery.
Witness the marvels of Parrott, Dahlgren, and Rodman.
The Armstrong, Palliser, and Beaulieu guns were compelled to bow
before their transatlantic rivals.

Now when an American has an idea, he directly seeks a second
American to share it. If there be three, they elect a president
and two secretaries. Given four, they name a keeper of records,
and the office is ready for work; five, they convene a general
meeting, and the club is fully constituted. So things were
managed in Baltimore. The inventor of a new cannon associated